Kate Mackenzie

Kate MacKenzie gained her widest recognition through steady appearances on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show, where she performed as part of the Hopeful Gospel Quartet alongside Keillor and Robin and Linda Williams. Those broadcasts called for her to handle an unusually broad range of vocal styles, while her own listening habits stretch from the Elvis Presley and Patsy Cline albums of her youth to Motown, Irish folk, classical, pop, bluegrass, blues, and country. Bluegrass, blues, and country dominate her first solo release, Let Them Talk, which appeared in 1994. Exposure to folk and bluegrass at the University of Minnesota led her to pick up the guitar on her own, yet she did not feel ready to sing in public until reaching the age of 28. Her initial professional outing came with the bluegrass group Stoney Lonesome; after that engagement she joined A Prairie Home Companion and, fifteen years later, completed her debut album, Age of Innocence.